Books I Recently Read

Why Are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform is a collection of essays edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. I can relate to the theme of most of the essays. Among other things they deal with those of us who do are outsiders in the mainstream gay community and transgender issues. I was reminded of not fitting in with the other gay male students when I was attending university. Disco music was popular with most of the gay community, and I was more interested in contemporary composers and punk music. I could not find other gay men who were punks like me. I have never felt the need to conform to norms in the straight or straight communities. I was lonely at times, but true happiness came from accepting myself. (Well, I am still working on that.) We in the LGBTIQ communities need to be more accepting of others in our community who march to the beats of different drummers. I highly recommend this book.

Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread is a collections of  stories and a novella by Chuck Palahniuk. I was disappointed with this book. It lacked something that Fight Club and Diary had. It seemed like a book that would be popular with teachers of literature. It lacked their punch. It did have some entertaining passages, but it is not his best writing.

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos is the latest book by Brian Greene. It is an entertaining, educational book. It is more obvious in this book than it was in The Elegant Universe that the author wants to write popular books. There are more references to popular cultures. To me these references are distracting. One reason that this is true is I am not familiar to most of the things to which he referred. An example is the TV programme "South Park," I have only seen one episode. It is an interesting book, but the author lets some of his preconceived ideas get in the way. He has a very view of conditions in which life can exist. Since this book was published it has been discovered that life exists under conditions in which it was not thought that life could exist on this planet. I would still recommend this book to those who want to learn more about physics and the possibility that we are living in a multiverse.

The book I finished reading most recently is Side Trips from Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and the Western American Myth by Sandy Compton. Its author wrote about his addiction with gambling and his travels through lands that had belonged to the Nez Perce tribe. He also wrote about twelve-step programs. He seems to have a slight understanding of the spirituality of Native Americans, but his knowledge seems very superficial. His views on addiction seem questionable. He says that addicts are addicted to pain. I think that addicts try more to avoid pain. I do agree with him that addiction has a spiritual source, but true addiction also has a physical aspect. I did enjoy this book somewhat, but U was left unsatisfied.